| Neumayer III Station | |
| Settlement Type: | Antarctic base |
| Flag Size: | 110px |
| Flag Border: | no |
| Mapsize: | 350px |
| Pushpin Map: | Antarctica |
| Pushpin Map Alt: | Location of Neumayer II Station in Antarctica |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location of Neumayer II Station in Antarctica |
| Pushpin Mapsize: | 270 |
| Pushpin Relief: | yes |
| Coordinates: | -70.6744°N -8.2742°W |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: |  |
| Subdivision Type1: | Location in Antarctica |
| Subdivision Name1: | Ekström Ice Shelf Queen Maud Land Antarctica |
| Subdivision Type3: | Administered by |
| Subdivision Name3: | Alfred Wegener Institute |
| Established Title: | Established |
| Named For: | Georg von Neumayer |
| Elevation M: | 43 |
| Population As Of: | 2017 |
| Population Footnotes: | [1] |
| Population Blank1 Title: | Summer |
| Population Blank1: | 60 |
| Population Blank2 Title: | Winter |
| Population Blank2: | 9 |
| Blank Name Sec1: | Type |
| Blank Info Sec1: | All-year round |
| Blank1 Name Sec1: | Period |
| Blank1 Info Sec1: | Annual |
| Blank2 Name Sec1: | Status |
| Blank2 Info Sec1: | Operational |
| Blank Name Sec2: | Activities |
| Code1 Name: | UN/LOCODE |
| Code1 Info: | AQ NEU |
| Neumayer III Skiway | |
| Iata: | QAN |
| Icao: | AT16 |
| Type: | Private |
| City-Served: | Neumayer Station III |
| Location: | Ekström Ice Shelf |
| Utc: | -1 |
| Elevation-F: | 55 |
| Elevation-M: | 17 |
| Coordinates: | -70.6333°N -8.2633°W |
| Pushpin Map: | Antarctica |
| Pushpin Mapsize: | 270 |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location of airfield in Antarctica |
| R1-Length-F: | 3,326 |
| R1-Length-M: | 1,014 |
| R1-Surface: | Ice |
| Footnotes: | [2] |
Neumayer Station III, also known as Neumayer III after geophysicist Georg von Neumayer, is a German Antarctic research station of the Alfred-Wegener-Institut. It is located on the approximately thick Ekström Ice Shelf several kilometres south of Neumayer Station II.[3] The station's assembly kit was transported to its current position early in November 2007. It is moving with the shelf ice at about per year towards the open sea.
After almost ten years of work on the project, beginning in October 1999, including conception, environmental impact assessment, planning and construction phases, regular operation of the station began on 20 February 2009. The station replaces the Neumayer Station II and the Georg von Neumayer Station that preceded it. The expected lifespan of the station is 25 to 30 years and the entire project is estimated to cost €39 million.
The station was constructed 6m (20feet) above ground on a temporary two-level platform, and it now rests on 16 hydraulic columns set on a solid snow surface. A garage and further technical equipment (such as PistenBully, also referred to as caterpillar trucks, Ski-Doos, etc.) are located within a subsurface snow cavern at the front of the station. The moving concrete supporting feet are powered by hydraulic machinery. Through an annual lifting procedure of 80to it is expected to prevent new snow from causing the platform to sink.
The station runs all year round and includes 210m2 of laboratory surface, divided into 12 compartments. It has twice the floor area of previous stations. Within the 15 living compartments there is room for 60 occupants to sleep.[1] All inner rooms of the platform are built as self-contained units, some of which have aligned connecting passages, depending on their size. The compartmentalized interior of the station is enclosed in sheet metal with an interior polyurethane rigid foam insulation.[3] The green metal girders in the “structure section” image indicate snow level; they are not part of the final structure. All items below the girders will later be embedded in the Antarctic snow.
The above-surface construction method of Neumayer III is now predominant in the Antarctic, seen at other new stations such as the American Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station and the Belgian Princess Elisabeth Base.
A majority of the construction materials and the heavy steel frame were delivered by the end of January 2008. The plan specified that the last of the construction equipment had to leave Ekström Ice Shelf by March 2009. A crew of about 90 worked on construction. By mid-January 2009, the exterior work on the station was completed, so that further improvement to the 99 interior containers could continue unaffected by the weather.
In addition to the previously mentioned laboratories and accommodation areas, there is a south-facing lounge with many windows, living quarters and workrooms, a laundry room containing two washing machines and two dryers, a sauna, an information technology room, shower and washrooms, a dining room with a serving window connected to the kitchen, a conference room, medical treatment rooms, operating rooms, storage rooms, a refrigerated area, a dressing room, a room for the heating system, a planning and training room, and a water-treatment room.
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In order to minimize any effect that the main station's regular operations might have on the accuracy of scientific projects, small remote platforms are set up at a distance of 900to from the main station. Magnetic, seismic, trace element, and acoustic research are the chief research missions of these remote stations.
Previous Neumayer stations have been the center of continuous research since 1981, especially with respect to their observatories. In addition to the main research areas of meteorology, geophysics and atmospheric chemistry, which have been studied on the stations since the 1980s, infrasound has been studied for five years and marine acoustics since 2005.
Neumayer Station experiences a dry-summer ice cap climate (Köppen EFs). In the winter, it is not shielded from the cold air masses of the interior, and as a consequence, on average the temperature drops to or below -40C 10.3 times per year. The coldest temperature ever recorded was -50C on July 8, 2010. It also experiences strong catabatic winds. On average, the wind speed reaches or surpasses 100km/h 9 times per year. The highest wind speed ever recorded was 187km/h on July 16, 2013. In that moment, the temperature was -22C, decreasing the felt temperature to -47C.[7] There are 1430 sunshine hours per year.